The End Of The Innocence
by xXBalorBabeXx
Summary: It had been a normal day for Maria... but when a chance meeting brings an innocent young girl into her life and in danger, Maria is torn between holding onto what she thought was long lost and letting it go.
1. Chapter 1

It had been a beautiful late summer day in Vice City, everyone enjoying it. Little Inessa was running around excitedly and almost went right into traffic but was picked up into someone's arms.

"Easy there, little one. They don't always slow down. What's your name?" 24 year old Maria Vercetti says.

"Inessa." Inessa says, Maria recognising the Russian accent.

"Nice to meet you, Inessa. Are your mommy and daddy nearby? I'm sure they must be wondering where you are." Maria says, Inessa lightly pulling on a lock of Maria's light brown hair.

"They're at the adult drinks place and said I could go around the park." Inessa says, pointing across in the direction of the bar.

"Well, you shouldn't really be out here alone, kiddo." Maria says, carefully crossing the street with the small child… and that was where it went haywire.

Inessa screamed and hung onto Maria as gunfire broke out, Maria shielding Inessa from the bullets as she ran with Inessa in her arms.

"Inessa, it's gonna be okay, alright? Just stay with me, sweetie." Maria says, stopping by a payphone and attempting to dial 911… but Inessa noticed something Maria hadn't.

"RUN, IT'S A-" Inessa screams, pulling on Maria's tank top again... but it was a second too late as the next thing that Maria and Inessa had felt was them being thrown 50 feet from the payphone and crash landing under a palm tree.

Tommy slammed on the brakes of his white Infernus and got out with his Colt .45 Python in hand, shooting two gangbangers dead as they tried to shoot Maria and Inessa before he ran to the small unconscious figures under the palm tree and crouched down by them, Inessa cradled protectively in Maria's arms.

Inessa managed to open her eyes… but she knew something was wrong and looked up at Tommy, pointing to her ears to indicate that she couldn't hear him. She looked at Maria as tears fell down her face before looking at Tommy for help, a look similar to 4 year old Angeline whenever she got hurt.

' _Is she alive, mister?'_ Inessa mouthed to Tommy after he took her into his arms, Tommy checking Maria for a pulse and sighing in relief.

"She'll be…" Tommy starts to say, stopping as he remembered that Inessa couldn't hear him, instead pointing to Maria and switching his hand position to a thumbs up.

"Inessa!" A man and a woman shouted as they ran over, Tommy looking at them… and turning disgusted when he realised that the man had been drinking.

"What kind of parents are you, leaving a child unattended?!" Tommy yells.

"We were just across the street…" The woman says, Tommy turning infuriated. Before he could yell again, he felt Maria's hand squeeze his and looked, seeing her brown eyes open.

"Is… she okay?" Maria manages to ask through the sharp pain in her ribcage.

"I don't know… could she hear before?" Tommy says, Maria managing to look at Inessa and seeing her wiping away blood that was trailing down from her ear.

Pulling herself up, Maria stood up and limped to the Infernus… but she had barely had a grip on the towel before losing consciousness again and falling to the ground, Tommy handing Inessa to her mother before running to Maria, holding her in his arms and grabbing his phone out of his pocket, dialing 911.

The next time Maria had woken up, she was in the E.R of the Downtown Hospital, trying to get up and find Inessa but Tommy stopped her.

"What kind of assholes throw a grenade near a child?!" Maria shouts, herself more worried about Inessa since she couldn't find her and now infuriated. "Where is she, Tommy?!" She asks.

"Two doors down the hallway with her parents who, it seems, are having trouble paying up for healthcare." Tommy says.

"Hospitals shouldn't charge people." Maria says, examining her slightly burned and scraped arms. "Ouch… grenade burns or ones from the road that has sun beating down on it?" She says.

"I doubt it was the road, you weren't on it for long enough." Tommy says.

Maria tried not to cry right now but her worry for Inessa made her think back to the times that Carlotta or Frank, whenever one or both were high, would smack her around. The last straw was when Carlotta slammed the handle of a revolver into Maria's left ear and ruptured the eardrum when Maria was 13 and Maria decided that she was better off on the streets until the LCPD caught her one night and dragged her back home.

"What in the hell happened to you, Ria?! Tommy, what happened, did the Haitians try to kill her?!" Ken asked after running in.

Getting aggravated, Maria ripped her I.V and needle out, bandaged her hand and pulled the blood pressure cuff off before walking out of the room and finding Inessa.

"Is this the lady who saved you?" The woman asks, Inessa nodding.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm so sorry that she-" Maria says, the woman turning to her to try to comfort her.

"It's okay, it's not your fault." The woman says, also with a Russian accent.

"I'll help with the hospital bill, it won't be any trouble." Maria says, Inessa lightly playing with one of Maria's cherry red painted nails.

"If you would… we've already got enough on our hands with debts." The woman says, Maria now becoming concerned as she saw that Inessa didn't seem to be reacting to anything they were saying.

After the hospital bill was sorted out, Maria had to sit down again as the woman had noticed Maria's badly scraped knees that were bleeding through the bandages. But when the woman tried to unbandage them, Maria flinched as a memory flash of Carlotta screaming at her _"You stupid little brat, scraped knees are your own fault!"_ crept into her mind, the woman realising that Maria wasn't too trusting of too many other women.

"Sorry… my mom wasn't too kind to me when I was younger." Maria says.

"I wouldn't say Inessa's father is much different but… well, in Russian ways, the father is the worker and businessman, he doesn't get much time to care for his daughter." The woman says.

Inessa rested her small hand on Maria's left arm as the woman removed the bandages from Maria's knees, seeing that the reason they were still bleeding is because they hadn't scabbed over completely.

Wounds were something Maria was all too familiar with.


	2. Chapter 2

"For the last time, you're not going in there until you sober up!" Tommy says, aggressively forcing the drunken man to sit down.

"Do you have kids, mister?!" The man snarled.

"A daughter about the same age as your own… but I don't expose her to how crazy I am when drunk." Tommy says.

"A damn grenade! How do I know they weren't aiming for that scrawny bitch instead?!" The man yells, Tommy punching him as he did not like Maria being blamed or insulted.

"You don't talk about my little sister that way, whoever the hell you are!" Tommy yells.

"Hair trigger temper with him…" Maria says, closing the door and pulling the curtain in front of the glass to prevent Inessa from witnessing the fight. "I didn't get your name earlier, ma'am. I'm Maria." She says after turning to the woman.

"Viktoriya." The woman says.

"That's a nice name." Maria says, Inessa pointing at Maria's nails and then looking at Viktoriya, curious about the bright red color.

"She's never really seen painted nails before… we've only actually been in the country a few months." Viktoriya says.

Maria grabbed a notepad and a pen, writing something down and showing it to Inessa.

' _When I was a bit older than you, I started wearing this color on my nails. Looking at the brightness always made me smile, kiddo.'_

Inessa clapped her hands together and leaned against Viktoriya, feeling sleepy.

"Did they give her too much Children's Tylenol?" Maria asks, remembering how it used to make her sleepy when she was as small as Inessa.

Deciding to let them rest, Maria walked into the waiting room… only to see Inessa's father being taken into a treatment room and bruises on Tommy's hands.

"Do you really have to be so damned aggressive whenever some idiot mouths off, Tommy?" Maria asks as Tommy wraps his arms around her, Maria wrapping her arms around him. "I'd tell you that I'm okay… but you wouldn't believe it. Did you get a name out of that guy?" She says.

"Ivan." Tommy says.

"Ivan sounds about as crazy as Carlotta was." Maria says, Tommy lightly rubbing his hand up and down her back but stopped when Maria flinched as he accidentally brushed his hand against the right side of her ribcage, three ribs bruised and two fractured.

The Vercetti mansion was quiet when the two walked in until Angeline ran down the stairs excitedly and jumped into her aunt's arms, Maria hugging Angeline… but when Angeline saw Maria's burns and scrapes, she turned worried.

"Daddy, did Auntie Ria fall?" Angeline asks after looking at Tommy, who gently took her into his arms.

Maria walked upstairs to her room and gently closed the door… when it was closed, she walked over to her bed and stretched out on it, finally letting herself cry. It wasn't too long before she felt a hand on her back, looked up and saw Ken.

"I didn't want to scare Inessa or Angel by crying… did they say back at the hospital if Inessa's hearing will come back?" Maria says.

"They said… unlikely. At the very best, she'll be able to hear vibrations, us talking right next to her will sound like were separated from her by a wall." Ken says.

Maria felt Ken's arms wrap around her as he stretched out next to her, Maria resting her head on his right shoulder and closing her eyes to try to soothe her tired mind. When she woke back up a half hour later, she heard water running before it was shut off and sat up, Ken walking out to her half naked and his torso, arms and abs having water and soap trickle down them.

"I… decided that you could use some time to yourself to relax." Ken says, helping Maria up to her feet and lightly pulling her dirty and bloodstained tank top off. Maria slipped her sandals and shorts off, lightly kissing Ken on his jawline before pulling her hair into a messy bun and disappearing into the bathroom after pulling her red lace bra and underwear off.

Removing the bandages off of her knees and arms, Maria gently climbed into the clawfoot tub. She immediately leaned back against it, breathing in the mixed scents of pineapple and hibiscus bath salts.

After drying his upper body off, Ken pulled a shirt on and decided to let Maria have some time to herself. He walked downstairs, hearing a knock at the door and decided to answer it.

"You were at the hospital earlier, right?" Ivan asks.

"I don't see how it's really any of your business but yes, I was checking on my friend. She did save an innocent child after all." Ken says.

"Yeah, _my_ innocent child, right before her brother forced and stopped me from seeing her! My own daughter, and some stranger has the nerve to get between us!" Ivan says.

"Tommy didn't want your daughter to see you drunk. He has problems with parents who prefer to drink instead of watching their own kids!" Ken says, having been told the full story from Tommy and like Tommy, it set Ken off too.

"Maybe that's true but where I come from, the mother and father split the job, the mom does the caring and the dad does the working, it's just how it works… and as for the drinking, back home we used to run a bar, she's seen drunk people pretty much for as long as she's been alive." Ivan says.

"It's still a horrifying thing for a kid to see and I'm gonna ask you to keep your voice down before-" Ken says.

"Uncle Ken? What's going on?" Angeline asks, Ken running over to his 4 year old goddaughter and picking her up in his arms.

"Nothing sweetie… this man here is just confused, he's been wandering around lost." Ken says, looking at Ivan as if to say _"Don't dare flip out in front of this little angel."_... but Ivan wouldn't leave.

Having heard the noise from upstairs, Maria carefully climbed out and dried off, draining the bath water before pulling on a pair of underwear and pajamas. She tossed her silk robe on and slipped her revolver into her pocket before joining the others downstairs as did Tommy, Ivan's yelling having driven Angeline to tears… and Ivan angry that she started crying.

"Okay, that's enough!" Maria says, shoving Ivan outside and closing the door behind them. "You have no respect! Otherwise, you wouldn't have traumatized my little niece! Now you need to leave!" She says angrily, Ivan turning his rage towards her and backhanding her. Maria reached into her robe pocket and pulled the gun out, pressing it against Ivan's head.

"Go on then… your niece will hear the shot and forever remember what you did, plus you'll be leaving a now deaf child without her father… go on, woman, let out the monster you really are! Don't leave it a weak and empty threat, shoot me dead!" Ivan says, shouting at the end.

Maria clicked the safety back on, Ivan barely having time to smirk before being smacked across the face with the gun three times until his nose and right cheekbone were broken.

"How do you like being abused, huh?! Now run along and consider yourself lucky that you're still alive with how pathetic you are!" Maria says coldly, Ivan backing up as her rage scared him.

Ivan left, Maria putting the gun away and walking back inside.

"I heard bones breaking… is he dead?" Angeline asks.

"He's just roughed up, kiddo. He's still alive." Maria says, Angeline seeing blood trickle down Maria's mouth.

"Daddy, what is it you say when someone attacks another person after being hit?" Angeline asks.

"It's self defense, babydoll." Tommy says, kissing Angeline on her forehead before lightly hugging Maria with one arm and heading upstairs.

"Hey, easy now. Ken, is that really necessary?" Maria says as Ken gently wiped the blood away with a napkin, Ken knowing that Maria had pulled the gun out on Ivan because she had been reliving her past abuse for a few seconds.

Back at the small apartment they lived in in Little Havana, Ivan walked in after getting patched up.

"Inessa's sleeping… what happened?" Viktoriya says, seeing Ivan's injuries.

"I tried to confront that man… his sister got pissed because I scared her niece, then the pint sized monster told me off. I… I lost it and backhanded her." Ivan says, Inessa slapping him.

"You… stupid man! That woman you hit has been through too much, how dare you hit her?!" Viktoriya says angrily.

"I don't know, I just lost it!" Ivan says.

"Look… maybe this 'trying to blend into American ways' thing isn't working out so much. Maybe we should just do it as it was done to us, you work and I'll do the caring. In future, when it concerns Inessa, just… let me handle it, okay?" Viktoriya says.

"I suppose… it is what we do best." Ivan says.

At the same time, Maria wandered up to the roof of the Vercetti mansion, now dressed in a white sundress... alone time soothed her.

But it wouldn't work this time.


End file.
